Status Updates From The Poetry of Black America...

the children
they move
stand about
roam freely
come rushing,
their innocence
solemn
their grace

have you seen them have you
seen them
can you feel
the Revolution
--Angelo Lewis (1950- )

I shall write of the old men I knew
And the young men
I loved
And of the gold toothed women
Mighty of arm
Who dragged us all
To church.
--Alice Walker (1944- )

as things be/ come
let's destroy
then we can destroy
what we be/ come
let's build
what we become
when we dream
--Nikki Giovanni (1943- )

Christmas morning i
got up before the others and
ran
naked across the plank
floor into the front
room to see grandmama
sewing a new button on my last year
ragdoll.
--Carol Freeman (1941- )

the real people loves one another
the rest bees shaming, bees walkin
backwards under the sun
--Rob Penny (1941-2003)

the soul holds lost keys that know
what the hand took
and where
the ships
are going
--Joe Johnson (1940- )

The sky
a black woman's bosom
bursting blues,
brooding black
--Joe Johnson (1940- )

At one end of the line
there was God
& at the very other end
there is God.
In between
shine all the stars of all the spaces
illuminating everything
to the two tender points
that are your eyes
--Al Young (1939-2021)

For Poets

Stay beautiful
but dont stay down underground too long
Dont turn into a mole
or a worm
or a root
or a stone

Come on out into the sunlight
Breathe in trees
Knock out mountains
Commune with snakes
& be the very hero of birds

Don't forget to poke your head up
& blink
Think
Walk all around
Swim upstream

Don't forget to fly
--Al Young (1939-2021)

Vietnam #4

a cat said
on the corner
the other day
dig man
how come so many
of us
niggers
are dying over there
in that white
man's war
they say more of us
are dying
than them peckerwoods
& it just don't make sense
unless it's true
that the honkies
are trying to kill us out
with the same stone
they killing them other cats
with
you know, he said
two birds with one stone
--Clarence Major (1936- )

When I die. . . may they pick me apart and take the
useful parts, the sweet meat of my feelings. And leave
the bitter bullshit rotten white parts
alone.
--Amiri Baraka (1934-2014)

Lately, I've become accustomed to the way
the ground opens up and envelopes me
each time I go out to walk the dog. . .

And now, each night I count the stars,
and each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.
--IMAMU AMIRI BARAKA (1934-2014)

your fingers draw fire
but still the old warlocks shun you
for no gourds ring in your sack
no spells bring forth peace
and I am still fruitless and hungry
this summer
the peaches are flinty and juiceless
and cry sour worms.
--Audre Lorde (1934-199)

D blues
What you woke up wit
Dhis mourning
What you toss and turn
All night in your bed wit
Nothing, no
One in your arms
Nobody.

Dats
What D blues
Is.
--Calvin C. Hernton (1932-2001)

I'm tired
of hand me downs
shut me ups
pin me ins
keep me outs
messing me over
have just had it baby
from you. . .
--Mari Evans (1919-2017)

This is the way of grief:
spinning in the rhythm of memories
that will not let you up
or down. . .
--Gloria C. Oden (1923-2011)

ah, this hurt, this hate, this ecstasy before I die,
and all my love a strong cathedral!
. . .
While I here standing black beside
wrench tears from which the lies would suck the salt
to make me more American than America. . .
But yet my love and yet my hate shall civilize this land,
this land's salvation.
--Lance Jeffers (1919-1985)

The huge slow grief drives on
And I wonder why
And I grow cold
And care less
And less and less I care.

If the stars should fall,
I grant them privilege. . .

It is all the same
The same to me
I say the great Gods, all of them,
All--cold, pitiless--
Let them fall down
Let them buckle and drop.
--Samuel Allen (1917-2015)

we are each other's
harvest:
we are each other's
business:
we are each other's
magnitude and bond.
--Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)

They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.

Two who are mostly good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.

And remembering. . .
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room. . .
--Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)

Black girl black girl
lips as curved as cherries
full as grape bunches
sweet as blackberries

Black girl black girl
when you walk you are
magic as a rising bird
or a falling star

Black girl black girl
what's your spell to make
the heart in my breast
jump stop shake
--Dudley Randall (1914-2000)

With a twitching nose
A dog reads a telegram
On a wet tree trunk
--Richard Wright (1908-1960)

The flamingo is a dash of pink
Against dark green mangroves,
Her slender legs rivalling her slim neck.
--Helen Johnson (1907-1995)

Night is a curious child, wandering
Between earth and sky, creeping
In windows and doors, daubing
The entire neighborhood
With purple paint.
Day
Is an apologetic mother
Cloth in hand
Following after.
--Frank Marshall Davis (1905-1987)

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.
--Countee Cullen (1903-1946)

White man tells me--hunh--
Damn yo' soul;
White man tells me--hunh--
Damn yo' soul;
Got no need, bebby,
To be tole.
--Sterling A. Brown (1901-1989)

You, too, will suffer under Pontius Pilate
And feel the rugged cut of rough-hewn cross
Upon your surging shoulder--
They will spit in your face
And laugh
They will nail you up twixt thieves
And gamble for your garments.
And in this you will exceed God
For on this earth
You shall know Hell--
O little brown boys
With Christ-like eyes
And curling hair,
It is fitting that you be here.
--Frank Horne (1899-1974)

Locked in the death-struggle humanity's host,
Seeking revenge with the dagger and sword;
This is the pride which the Pharisees boast,
Man damns his brother in the name of his Lord.
Hurt is the world, and its heart is unhealed,
Wrong sways the sceptre and Justice must yield.
--Walter Everette Hawkins (1883-- )

A silence slipping around like death,
Yet chased by a whisper, a sigh, a breath;
One group of trees, lean, naked and cold,
Inking their crest 'gainst a sky green-gold;
One path that knows where the corn flowers were;
Lonely, apart, unyielding, one fir;
And over it softly leaning down,
One star that I loved ere the fields went brown.
--Angelina Weld Grimké (1880-1958)